ATOS

[janeleask99]

Dear Ghostrider

 

Just stop reading and posting if you don't like what is being posted. However, please do not tell people using this thread when to stop.

 

Its called freedom of speech and not pleepsin.

[go.oot.by.dog]

Dear Ghostrider

 

Just stop reading and posting if you don't like what is being posted. However, please do not tell people using this thread when to stop.

 

Its called freedom of speech and not pleepsin.

 

Thanks Jane He is a gey gowsterit trumsket etterscab lipper wha is aye nyurlin aboot something.

[go.oot.by.dog]

Isn't it time to get to the punch line now after 14 pages, of what? Links and copy/pastes, some probably good, some very likely bad, and no doubt a few indifferent as well. What is the intent of this post, what's it supposed to encourage folk to do, where's it supposed to go.

 

As anyone who has ever tried to claim disablity money off H.M's finest already well knows, its always been a performance only surpassed by trying to pull hen's teeth. So, now they'd hired a mob of brainless numpties to check the forms, like that makes any real odds, the system was broken long, long ago, its not like whoever they hire can really make it any worse, only keep it as broken in a different way. So why this sudden uproar?

 

Oh, and before there are any sanctimonious retorts, a few facts:

 

a) I was signed off as medically unfit to work in June 1992, I still am, having been so continously since then.

 

I have been disabled to the point of being virtually housebound all of that period.

 

c) I do not receive any benefits whatsoever, and have not done so for some time. I have claimed in the past, but they stopped for reason(s) unknown, as nobody bothered to tell me they had until the Council started making a damn fair attempt at stoving my front door in demanding their back rent.

 

I haven't pursued the matter or reapplied, as to be perfectly honest the invasion of privacy and hoop jumping exercise that is the application process (and the current forms are no more and no less such than the first ones I completed over 20 years ago), simply isn't worth the pittance of pennies you're thrown at the end of it.

 

I never trusted H.M.G. whoever they were, to stump up beyond the last payment they did make, and that sooner or later it would all go yudders up, and made plans accordingly. For once I hate to have been proven right.

 

Yes, any disabled person has as big a problem claiming off H.M.G. what they supposedly have a statutory right to as any possible disability anyone could have, but that ain't new, it was like that with peas and gravy Major, and Toneee, and Brrun, and now whatsisface....so why the sudden fuss over whats been use and wint for at least over two decades?!?

 

I presume I'm wholly missing the point of this thread entirely, as collecting together a slew of links and copied articles all of the anti persuasion can only go one of to places in my mind, nowhere, as it is dismissed as biased opinion, or have a negative effect, in that folk get sick and tired of so much pleepsin.

 

Toot toot too tooooooo here comes the cavalry……. Now could it be that perhaps I have said something which was not liked by someone close to you and you have decided to have a go or is that just a coincidence. Either way it is of no importance and I actually think it is quite honourable.

 

As for a punch line, well there really is not one so sorry to disappoint you.

 

All that I have done is to start a topic on a public forum where I am collating stories which are of relevance to it and posting them for others who may be interested in them to read, I am struggling to see what is wrong with that as I am not hurting anyone nor am I forcing anyone to read it.

 

I actually feel sorry for you as from reading what you have written I would say that you have been beat by the system, however I would say you are fortunate to the extent that you can live without the “pittance†that is paid to the disabled as many can not manage to do so, and that is one of the points I am trying to make as it is being taken away from them illegitimately after going through the assessment process set up by the DWP and carried out by Atos.

 

As for pleepsin I would say your last post contained more of that than most of mines added together.

 

I do not care what your opinions are on my thread and I am going to suggest something which may seem quite radical to you but here goes anyway, if you do not like what I am doing then do not read it as no one is forcing you to!

 

I shall not be replying to this as I do not want to fill my thread debating points with you which are of no interest to me, so again please just leave the Atos thread if you are unhappy with it as there are many more which you can visit.

[go.oot.by.dog]

^^ rather eloquently put, GR...................

 

Are you still here? I thought i was boring you? Are you missing some slates of your roof? lol

[go.oot.by.dog]

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.â€

 

There certainly is a frightening resemblance with our current situation to Mr Orwell's book 1984.

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/dont-be-fooled-iain-duncan-smiths-attack-on-pensioners-is--really-an-attack-on-all-of-us-8591518.html

Don't be fooled: Iain Duncan Smith’s attack on pensioners is really an attack on all of us

This is where the shredding of universalism ends up, promoting poisonous ideas of the 'undeserving poor' and the further destruction of Britain’s social cohesion

Britain’s welfare state is under such a sustained attack from so many directions, it is difficult to know where to begin a defence. The latest volley – yet another assault on the principle of universalism from Iain Duncan Smith – may, at first, seem more more challenging to take on than, say, the scandalous kicking of the working poor, disabled and unemployed people. Duncan Smith argues that wealthy pensioners who don’t really need benefits such as the winter fuel allowance or free bus passes should hand them back. How is unclear; as Ken Clarke quickly pointed out: “You can’t... I don’t think it has a system for doing that.†But it’s clear where this is all heading: the Liberal Democrats already favour stripping these benefits from middle-class people, and a large chunk of Tories would like to do the same, too.

On top of the chaotic withdrawal of child benefit for higher earners, Duncan-Smith’s intervention is consistent with the gradual chipping away of the very foundations of the welfare state. It’s a clever ruse, too. It seems to reverse the positions of left and right. How is it defensible for low-paid workers to cough up to pay for frivolous benefits that multi-millionaires simply do not need? It even taps into widespread discomfort with the very inequality promoted by right-wing policies: why on earth should some of the country’s wealthiest people get free TV licences?

 

It is certainly true that members of Britain’s booming rich elite have lots of money they simply don’t need, whether they have retired or not. That’s one reason we have this thing called tax. What it does – in theory, any way – is take money from you based on your income, in order to pay for a functioning, civilised society. Rich people have benefited from this more than most: they need workers trained by a state-funded education system and kept healthy by a state-funded healthcare system; they depend on lending from banks rescued by the taxpayer; they rely on state-funded infrastructure and research, and – like all of us – on a society that does not collapse. Whether they like it or not, they would not have made their fortunes without the state spending billions of pounds.

 

The universal basis of social security is this: “Everyone pays in, everyone gets something back.†It should be seen as inextricably linked with citizenship: that all of us have access to certain rights, whoever we are. On technical grounds, universalism works: it is the most efficient, cheap, easily understandable and simple way of administering the welfare state. Take a look at a Scandinavian country like Sweden. The wealthiest pay one of the highest tax rates in the world – nearly 57 per cent – and get the same excellent cradle-to-grave benefits as everybody else. Sweden, of course, is one of the most equal, best-functioning societies on earth, as nations with universal welfare states tend to be.

 

But what the assault on universalism really means is the further destruction of Britain’s already-collapsing social cohesion. The Tory strategy since coming to power has involved the most shameless attempt to turn large sections of the electorate against each other since the Second World War. If you’re a low-paid worker suffering cuts to your pay packet and tax credits then you are encouraged to be enraged that the less deserving unemployed “scrounger†is not being mugged sufficiently. Stripping the welfare state of its universalism will breed a middle-class that is furious about paying large chunks of tax, getting nothing back and subsidising the supposedly less deserving. It will accelerate the demonisation of the British poor.

 

It is easy to see where it is leading. Low-earners are being taken out of income tax, even if they are being left poorer overall by increased indirect taxes and the slashing of both in-work and out-of-work benefits. But remember when Mitt Romney damned the 47 per cent of Americans who supposedly paid nothing in, while benefiting from supposed state largesse? That is where the shredding of universalism ends up, promoting poisonous ideas of an undeserving poor, where the wealthy resent paying taxes in exchange for zilch.

 

Given the explosion in the fortunes of the wealthiest 1,000 Britons since Lehman Brothers collapsed is bigger than our annual deficit, the case for the rich coughing up more money is unanswerable. That means an all-out war on the £25bn lost each year through tax avoidance, increasing tax on both income and wealth, clamping down on tax relief on pension contributions for the wealthiest, hiking capital gains tax, and so on. If a pensioner is well-off, then they should pay more proportionate to their wealth and income. That’s how we get money from the wealthiest without undermining universalism in favour of an inefficient, socially destructive alternative.

 

As ever, the Tories are setting the terms of debate on social security in the absence of an effective response from the Labour leadership. All too often, Labour’s leading lights have refused to take on – or have even endorsed – Tory attempts to set people against each other. Their most recent proposals included a contributory system – that is, you get back depending on what you’ve put in. It would discriminate against the million young people currently languishing in unemployment; women, who are more likely to take time off work to look after children; disabled and ill people; poorer people; and those with the misfortune to live in areas of high unemployment. Labour has finally started accepting that low wages are being subsidised courtesy of the taxpayer, but has yet to consistently make the same argument about landlords charging extortionate rents.

 

The universal welfare state is under siege; it needs a confident, coherent defence. Talk of reform must surely centre on the subsidising of bosses and landlords. The case for tax on the basis of wealth and income desperately has to be made. As Britain’s finest Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, put it: “If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim.†If Labour fails to do its job and drive the Tory onslaught back, our already deeply fragmented society will face even further social destruction. It must not be allowed to happen.

[Distortio]

Isn't it time to get to the punch line now after 14 pages, of what? Links and copy/pastes, some probably good, some very likely bad, and no doubt a few indifferent as well. What is the intent of this post, what's it supposed to encourage folk to do, where's it supposed to go.

 

As anyone who has ever tried to claim disablity money off H.M's finest already well knows, its always been a performance only surpassed by trying to pull hen's teeth. So, now they'd hired a mob of brainless numpties to check the forms, like that makes any real odds, the system was broken long, long ago, its not like whoever they hire can really make it any worse, only keep it as broken in a different way. So why this sudden uproar?

 

Oh, and before there are any sanctimonious retorts, a few facts:

 

a) I was signed off as medically unfit to work in June 1992, I still am, having been so continously since then.

 

I have been disabled to the point of being virtually housebound all of that period.

 

c) I do not receive any benefits whatsoever, and have not done so for some time. I have claimed in the past, but they stopped for reason(s) unknown, as nobody bothered to tell me they had until the Council started making a damn fair attempt at stoving my front door in demanding their back rent.

 

I haven't pursued the matter or reapplied, as to be perfectly honest the invasion of privacy and hoop jumping exercise that is the application process (and the current forms are no more and no less such than the first ones I completed over 20 years ago), simply isn't worth the pittance of pennies you're thrown at the end of it.

 

I never trusted H.M.G. whoever they were, to stump up beyond the last payment they did make, and that sooner or later it would all go yudders up, and made plans accordingly. For once I hate to have been proven right.

 

Yes, any disabled person has as big a problem claiming off H.M.G. what they supposedly have a statutory right to as any possible disability anyone could have, but that ain't new, it was like that with peas and gravy Major, and Toneee, and Brrun, and now whatsisface....so why the sudden fuss over whats been use and wint for at least over two decades?!?

 

I presume I'm wholly missing the point of this thread entirely, as collecting together a slew of links and copied articles all of the anti persuasion can only go one of to places in my mind, nowhere, as it is dismissed as biased opinion, or have a negative effect, in that folk get sick and tired of so much pleepsin.

 

then you're lucky you're well-off enough to not have to survive on "the pittance of pennies you're thrown" (hardly what certain quarters are suggesting people routinely receive as a result of their no doubt erroneous claims... ) like many other people have to. what will happen when your pot runs dry or is taken away due to some previous administration error which supposedly resulted in an overpayment, or the bank just takes it to avoid bankruptcy when it finally becomes politically impossible to gift them another bailout...? then ATOS declare you fit for work? short of being dead there's a fair chance they would, and given your perfectly understandable reluctance to get caught up in the hoop jumping of the appeals process you would then be another box ticked earner for ATOS.

 

given your situation i'm surprised you're not arguing the case for making it easier for those who are entitled to claim what they absolutely do "have a statutory right to" rather than moaning about the number of posts criticising the latest far-reaching changes you haven't bothered to read. i can understand the tl;dr syndrome though, i haven't read them all myself, can't spend all day on shetlink.

 

and no, what's happening now is a much bigger change than any previous tinkering by various administrations, and it's by no means limited to ATOS/DWP. your cynicism is understandable, but sometimes it's worth reading up on things just to check that real world events haven't surpassed your misgivings.

[go.oot.by.dog]

Thanks Distortio and very well put as i often struggle to articulate exactly what i am trying to say.

 

I am mindful of the tl;dr but as there are so many stories regarding Atos and the Welfare Reforms it is difficult to narrow them down, so i just post the ones i find which i feel are relevant, and readers can take their choice of which ones to read.

[Distortio]

levity helps cover the shortfall in brevity.

 

http://i954.photobucket.com/albums/ae26/distortio/tutancameron.jpg

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://i1359.photobucket.com/albums/q799/magnacube/07bfc938-fea6-4f76-bdbc-0fbddcafa6ec_zpsd1735430.jpg

[go.oot.by.dog]

[go.oot.by.dog]

An interesting piece from MP Michael Meacher's blog -

 

http://www.michaelmeacher.info/weblog/2013/04/welfare-reform-give-the-public-the-facts-not-go-along-with-tory-lies/

 

Welfare reform: give the public the facts, not go along with Tory lies

April 25th, 2013

 

Labour’s recent slippage in the polls is partly because of the excessive timidity in declaring what the party really stands for, but also because of the way that Labour has been worsted over welfare reform. This reflects the Blairite Tendency’s efforts to out-right the Tories in playing to public prejudices over benefits - a contest it can never win without turning Labour into a Tory party mark II – as well as a deep unwillingness to stand up and fight for the facts if it might risk unpopularity. So far from courting popular favour by this tactic – the focus group approach – it actually alienates public opinion because of the perceived dishonesty. Yet the Tory position on welfare is so riddled with misrepresentation and lies that it ought to present Labour with an open goal.

 

First, contrary to the shock mythology perpetually run by the Tory tabloids on welfare which has caused the public to imagine (according to polls) that 27% of the welfare budget is claimed fraudulently, the actual figure – according to DWP official estimates – is 0.7%, one-thirtyeighth of what the public has been led to believe by Tory propaganda. By contrast the annual amount lost to the Exchequer through tax avoidance is some £25bn plus another £70bn through tax evasion. Why doesn’t Labour point this out continually?

 

Second, unemployment benefit, so far from being more generous than wages as is constantly implied, is actually lower in Britain than in almost any other EU country and has actually halved in value compared to average earnings over the last 35 years, from 22% in 1979 to just 11% now. Furthermore there are already draconian penalties in place against any JSA applicant who refuses to go on a training scheme or to take a job, including a 26-week loss of benefit. Of course people should be expected to work so long as they genuinely can and are not prevented by physical or mental disability, but how they are all expected to find a job when there are on average nationally 8 people chasing every available job and in the North-East no less than 22 per available job?

 

Third, instead of pointing the finger at imagined ‘shirkers’, the governing class should actually be pointing the finger at themselves for the increase in welfare costs. Since Thatcher’s period in office unemployment has averaged three times the post-war rate, peaking at 3.2 million in August 1986, and it would have been near-4 million if she and her government hadn’t switched hundreds of thousands of jobless persons on to incapacity benefit instead. At the same time the proportion of those in low-paid jobs has doubled to over 20%, while wage levels in general have now stagnated over the last decade. The fault lies not with the victims of the economic system but rather with the perpetrators of a neoliberal capitalism which has dramatically failed to produce jobs and decent wages.

 

Fourth, that is the reason why so many of those bearing the brunt of Cameron-Osborne’s benefit cuts aren’t unemployed at all: four-fifths of these tax credit and benefit cuts are hitting working households. So instead of penalising had-working families, why not go after the idle rich who live off capital, 1,000 of whom have just been revealed to have increased their wealth by £190bn since the financial crash of 2008-9, including by £35bn in the last year alone?

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/04/better-benefits-work-claim-complete-fallacy-wheres-evidence

 

The "better off on benefits than in work" claim is a complete fallacy - where's the evidence?

 

Earlier this month work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith and chancellor George Osborne claimed their changes to our welfare system mean, "no longer will it be possible to be better off on benefits than in work". The prime minister wrote the same in the Sun, calling it a "crazy situation".

 

The government's line, as it very gradually rolls out Universal Credit from today, that it is "making work pay" has cross-party support. "We would make work pay," promises Duncan Smith's mini-me Liam Byrne, while shadow chancellor Ed Balls affirms that "it must pay more to be in work than live on benefits."

 

My union's members, tens of thousands of whom work on the benefits and tax credits system, are confused. A jobcentre worker told me: "All the calculators that we use in jobcentres are designed to show that you would be better off in work."

 

So if politicians are telling us all that you can be better off on benefits, and jobcentre advisers are telling claimants that they would be better off in work, someone is being lied to. But who? Iain Duncan Smith should come clean. But not being one to look for pots of gold at the end of rainbows, I asked my union researchers to look into it.

 

They found the DWP’s "tax benefit model" – data which showed how much better off people out of work, in a range of circumstances, would be by moving into employment. Publication of this data was, intriguingly, abandoned in 2010 – just after the coalition government was elected, but a similar calculator is still used by DWP staff. It shows what would happen if someone moves into work for 30 hours per week. Even on the minimum wage, the legal minimum, benefits only deliver 79 per cent of what you would be paid in work.

 

We looked again to see if the same was true for only 16 hours of work – after all there are 1.4 million people working part time because they can’t find full-time work. This time benefits were only worth 81 per cent of a working income. Jobcentre advisers tell me these figures closely match the ones they use today.

 

For verification, we checked against data collected by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on all major countries’ welfare systems, including the UK’s. Like the DWP calculator, it factors in housing costs and benefits, and it assesses what is called the "replacement rate" for moving from benefits into work for 30 different household types – and in not one single case would a household be better off on benefits.

 

It does not feature in either the DWP's or OECD's models, but work might not pay for those who work very few hours in low paid jobs. But the irony here is that Duncan Smith has himself actually made this more likely by increasing the number of hours people need to work before they receive working tax credits.

 

The "better off on benefits" fallacy has become common. In truth, there has always been a clue that it is an urban myth: no one who claims it exists has ever actually given up work to live the benefits high life. And why not? Probably because deep down they do not believe it, but it is also true that even when the benefit of working is highly marginal, most people want to work. As unemployment climbs above 2.5 million, and 6.8 million counting as underemployed, the reality is there are fewer than half a million job vacancies. The real issue for the government is not making work pay, but making work exist.

 

PCS members working in jobcentres face a bullying management driving down their own living standards and setting targets that staff are told to deny exist. Low pay is so endemic that up to 40 per cent of the DWP’s own staff will be eligible for Universal Credit themselves. It is grim, far worse than when I started working for the DHSS in the early 1980s. Back then we helped claimants and took as long as was necessary to get them the benefits to which they were entitled.

 

On the other side of the counter (or more likely now on the other end of a phone) it is even worse, with claimants subject to more and harsher sanctions, unprecedented demonisation from ministers and a Pavlovian press trained to foam at the mouth at the mention of scroungers and skivers.

 

As well as challenging ministers’ myths, we have a duty to challenge their hatred-inciting rhetoric. So the next time Iain Duncan Smith – or anyone else for that matter – claims people are better off on benefits, hand him a pen and paper and ask him to show you how.

 

Mark Serwotka is the General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union

[go.oot.by.dog]

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/the_effects_of_sanctions_on_the#outgoing-270851

 

The Effects of Sanctions on the Teaching Profession

 

A freedom of information request made by a deputy head teacher to the DWP on 29 April

 

Dear Department for Work and Pensions,

 

I am a deputy head of a junior school in a deprived city area and

I’m having a lot of problems with the effects of benefit

denial/sanctions on my pupils’ and their respective parents’ please

allow me to elucidate. Almost every day we are having to deal with

the effects of so so-called welfare reform and when I had to deal

with another extremely distressed parent today – who’s been

sanctioned for not looking for enough jobs - it was the last straw,

so my questions are:

 

Q1. Do you realise the effect that your sanctions and refusal of

benefits are having on the most vulnerable in our society?

These are some examples of the disruption caused to me and my

colleagues by the DWP because you have refused benefits to parents.

a) Children A’s mother came in the school and explained her husband

had been sanctioned on JSA and she had no money for the electricity

(she was on a pre-pay meter) to launder her two children’s

uniforms, nor did she have money for food.

Child B had to move home because of the bedroom tax, the parent

couldn’t move B into a school nearer to their home as they were

full to capacity, so they have to travel on a bus to school,

recently he couldn’t come to school because of benefit sanctions,

the mother said they had no money for food and the DWP said they

weren’t allowed any whilst her partner was on sanction.

c) Children C’s father is disabled, however, he recently lost his

benefits because you said he’s no longer disabled, children C’s

mother was beside herself with stress as she explained to the head

how her husband had had all his money taken off him and was denied

benefits for appealing against the decision, the situation became

that dire for this particular family that I had to get social

services involved to help them.

d) There’s dozens of cases I can relate to you, however, today was

the last straw when a single parent told me her daughter had been

absent because the sole fell off her only pair of shoes and she had

no money because of sanctions to buy another pair.

 

Q2 Why have we i.e. teachers’ got to be social workers because you

are denying benefits? Do you realise the devastation you are

causing to the most vulnerable because of sanctions, etc? Because

it’s a proven fact:

• Parents’ can’t feed their children or put clothing on their backs

• Take them to school due to lack of money

• We can’t find school places for families constantly on the move –

we have refused a lot of families a school place that moved because

of the bedroom tax.

• Our social workers’ are frazzled and overworked because we have

to keep asking for their help for our pupils whose families are on

sanction.

 

Q3 Are the DWP going to pay schools for the disruption you are

causing parents’ and the whole teaching profession?

 

Q4 I realise your motto is make work pay and the taxpayer shouldn’t

have to fit the bill for those that don’t want to work,

notwithstanding this, I and my colleagues are taxpayers and you are

making our lives very stressful and our jobs much harder with your

draconian measures and teaching isn’t the only profession to be hit

by problems caused by sanctions/denying benefit (a neighbour of

mine is a paramedic who recently had to attend to a

diabetic-disabled person that hadn’t eaten for 3 days because he’s

disability had been stopped and he’d no money and this isn’t an

isolated case) so my question final question is why are you

needlessly sanctioning people? And have you any idea what effect

you’re having on

(i) Children?

(ii) The teaching profession?

(iii) The medical profession?

(iv) Social Workers?

What do you think this is costing the taxpayer? And society in

general?

 

Yours faithfully,

 

J Holt

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://www.fleetstreetfox.com/

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RHEwfrdahQM/TkPdZqsSMzI/AAAAAAAAARA/U3Zr8ipbg8I/s1600/FSF-header2.png

Benefit (n.): Something advantageous.

 

WE all know the reason we are broke is the poor people. At least, that's what we've been told for three years now.

 

If everyone worked rather than shirked we'd all be on eight holidays a year and final salary pensions, so the fact that the economy's flatter than Gwyneth Paltrow's ass cheeks must be down to the squidging effect of a great number of benefit cheats, scroungers and loungers squatting upon it like a stoned hippy at St Paul's.

 

And it's not just them. It's also the people who are working who can't be fagged to work a bit harder. It's the part-timers, the people who disappear to pick up their children, those who are content to half-heartedly earn a low income as a taxi driver, pest control officer, farmer, trainee or other plebby occupations safe in the knowledge the state will come along to bump it up with tax credits.

 

We know it's the poor people's fault, because five years ago we were rich and we've only had poor people for five years. Oh, wait...

 

Well, even if it's not their fault per se they're certainly not doing anything to make us rich again. They cost us a lot while achieving the square root of treading water, and if they can't swim like the big sharks, it's kinder to let 'em drown.

 

Big sharks like, for example, the international corporations which negotiate entirely-legal deals with the taxman not to pay much tax.

 

Killer whales similar to the big four accountancy firms whose staff not only advise the Treasury on tax law and second staff to work in the private offices of MPs and ministers formulating tax policy, but then go on to advise clients on how to avoid tax.

 

Great krill-suckers such as those operating a massively flawed, corrupt and semi-criminal banking system which bet money it didn't have on things which didn't exist, all of whom avoided arrest for what appears to be blatant fraud, and then got bailed out with someone else's money to the tune of £1.1trillion of which they still owe 40 per cent at an interest rate of zero.

 

If only the poor were more like them, eh? Imagine how rich we'd be.

 

So today the government is going to teach the poor a lesson by taking away all the benefits which make them lazy, fat Jeremy Kyle candidates and giving them one payment which will always be less than they need. This will make them work harder, see?

 

It's a bit like taking the armbands away from someone who's having trouble swimming. It's the only way they learn.

 

Meanwhile we're going to continue giving all the help we can to the sharks, killer whales and sucker-uppers, because they're not as morally repugnant as poor people or Jimmy Carr.

 

And while we wait for the shirkers to start slaving away at jobs that don't exist in industries which are struggling in order to avoid a benefit that is paid only online and puts money direct into the hands of tenants rather than their landlords leading to inevitable arrears, evictions and homelessness we'll all have to pay to sort out, we're going to pick on some rich people.

 

Not just any rich people. Granny.

 

The old bat's rolling in it, you know. She bought that house for sixpence a hundred years ago and now it's worth a million. She worked from the age of 16 and paid her taxes, has a lower pension because she raised her children herself rather than paying for a nanny, and scrimped and saved for years so that now she has no income she is still able to pay her council tax, the rising fuel bills, and for a small car to tootle down to the shops in.

 

Grandad even still works! She lived through rationing once, she can do it again. So we'll have her bus pass, her TV licence, her winter fuel allowance, and once we've got that we'll probably start on her prescriptions, her dental treatment, and her B&Q discount card too.

 

One day, we'll want her pension.

 

Never mind that grannies have not, as yet, sparked a financial crisis. Never mind that sensible shoes, cardigans and always-having-a-mint-in-your-pocket haven't escalated the national debt to £1.1trillion. No, grannies are next on the list and we're going to squeeze them until they squeal.

 

There is not, of course, a system by which granny can pay any of these things back to the state. But if we say often enough how awful they are for taking it, they'll all go for assisted suicide and the sharks can move into their mortgage-free houses.

 

But it strikes me that 'benefit' is the wrong word for the things we pay to grannies, the sick, the ill, and parents. Benefits are something whereby you gain; they are cash in your pocket; they are pennies from heaven.

 

Child benefit is £13 to £20 a week, which doesn't even approach the cost of having one. Shoes, nappies, school books, food, hot water for all those baths, constantly replacing the football - anyone who can do that on £13 to £20 a week should be working in the Treasury rather than the accountants.

 

Housing benefit does not, at present, go into the pockets of anyone but the landlords who by definition own at least two houses, if not more. Free TV licences for the over-75s simply means they stop paying for something they can no longer hear or see, which seems fair enough even if their senses do become mysteriously pin-sharp when Strictly Come Dancing is on.

 

Benefits, it seems to me, generally make you a target for having them taken away and for being blamed as the cause of an entire nation's financial woes. It doesn't appear particularly beneficial.

 

Getting the revenue to let you off your tax bill is, on the other hand, definitely a benefit. Avoiding jail is always advantageous and having an accountant who helped write the tax law never, ever hurts.

 

It's the rich gits who've got all the benefits. It's the corporations, the millionaires and billionaires, who get richer without even trying. Money just drops out of the sky and into their pockets even if they don't want it to, like Lord Sugar trying to pay back his winter fuel allowance and being told he couldn't. They can't help themselves - wealth is sticky, while poverty repels.

 

But that said, there is a sector of society where the benefits seem to be greater than everywhere else.

 

Where they get eight holidays a year, free houses, free food, free furniture, their council tax paid, their fuel bills not just subsidised with an allowance but settled in full, free travel, free cleaners, free gardening, where even if you're sacked for being rubbish you still get a pay-off and resettlement costs and pensions which are rock-solid final salary numbers.

 

They don't even have to work if they don't want to. Some of them don't even need to pass an interview. I've tried very hard and I can't think of another job where someone else automatically pays to redecorate your house and fix up the tennis court.

 

And these people are the ones who got us a trillion-pound debt. These are the ones who didn't order any criminal investigations of bankers. These are the ones who cry havoc at journalists while cosying up to tax avoiders, who steal a few pennies from the poor while throwing away billions in tax revenue to keep the rich happy, and who skank us for £164million a year for the privilege.

 

The benefits system is inarguably a mess, private landlords are charging too much for rent which the state is having to pay, and not every granny needs a bus pass. There are sensible ways of sorting all those things out, and IBS has ignored all of them in favour of talking out of his backside while living in a free mansion on an income of £1,600 a week after tax.

 

Benefits might well be bringing our nation to its knees, but it's the sort he doesn't like to talk about.

 

When everyone of pensionable age in Parliament has paid back their winter fuel allowance, turned down their TV licence, and they've all rejected offers of housing help and computed the fact they have more benefits per head than anyone else in the country then, and only then, should they go after everyone else's.

 

Failing that, they can take their £5.7million 'hardship fund' for former MPs fallen on hard times and donate it to charity in the way they think granny should with her winter fuel payment.

 

Hardship? I'd love to see them try it.